Napalm and Silly Putty

EXPRESSIONS I QUESTION

There are many expressions we take for granted. We use them all the time, yet never examine them carefully. We just say them as if they really made sense.

Legally drunk. Well, if it’s legal, what’s the problem? “Leave me alone, officer, I’m legally drunk!”

You know where you can stick it. Why do we assume everyone knows where they can stick it? Suppose you don’t know? Suppose you’re a new guy, and you have absolutely no idea where you can stick it? I think there ought to be a government booklet entitled Where to Stick It. Now that I think of it, I believe there is a government booklet like that. They send it to you on April 15.

Undisputed heavyweight champion. Well, if it’s undisputed, what’s all the fighting about? To me, “undisputed” means we all agree. Here you have two men beating the shit out of one another over something they apparently agree on. Makes no sense.

It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch. Every time I see a television news story about a mass murderer, the guy’s neighbor always says, “Well, he was very quiet.” And someone I’m with says, “It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch.”

This sounds like a very dangerous assumption. I’ll bet anything that while you’re busy watching a quiet one, a noisy one will kill you.

Suppose you’re in a bar, and one guy is sitting over on the side, reading a book, not bothering anybody. And another guy is standing. up at the front, bangin’ a machete on the bar, screamin’, “I’m gonna kill the next motherfucker who pisses me off!”

Who you gonna watch?

Lock him up and throw away the key. This is one you hear a lot from men. Men like to talk that way; it makes ’em feel tough. A guy sees a rapist on the TV news, he says, “You see that guy? They oughta lock him up, and throw away the key.”

This is really stupid. First of all, every time the guy’s gotta take a shit, you’re gonna have to call the locksmith. If he’s in prison thirty years, even if he’s eatin’ government cheese, it’s gonna cost you a fortune.

Second, where do you throw the key? Right out in front of the jail? His friends’ll find it! How far can you throw a key? Fifty, sixty feet the most. Even if you hold it flat on its side and scale it, whaddaya get? An extra ten feet, tops! This is a stupid idea that needs to be completely rethought.

Down the tubes. That’s one you hear a lot. People say, “This country is goin’ down the tubes.” What tubes? Have you seen any tubes? Where are these tubes? And where do they go? And how come there’s more than one tube? It would seem to me for one country all you need is one tube. Does every state have to have its own tube? One tube is all you need.

But a tube that big? Somebody would have seen it by now. Some-body would’ve said, “Hey Joey! Lookit the fuckin’ tube! Big-ass fuckin’ tube, over here!” You never hear that. You know why? No tubes! We don’t have tube one. We are, sorry to say, tubeless.

Takes the cake. “Boy, he really takes the cake.” Where? Where do you take a cake? To the movies? You know where I would take a cake? Down to the bakery, to see the other cakes. And how come he takes the cake? How come he doesn’t take the pie? A pie is easier to carry than a cake. “Easy as pie.” A cake is not too hard to carry, either. “Piece of cake.”

The greatest thing since sliced bread. So this is it? A couple of hundred thousand years… sliced bread? What about the Pyramids? The Panama Canal? The Great Wall of China? Even a lava lamp, to me, is greater than sliced bread. What’s so great about sliced bread? You got a knife, you got a loaf of bread. Slice the fuckin’ thing!! And get on with your life.

Out walking the streets. This is another one you hear from men. Some guy sees a rapist on the news. Same rapist as before; only this time he’s being released. The guy says, “You see that? You see that guy? They’re lettin’ him go! Now, instead of bein’ in prison, he’s out walkin’ the streets!”

How do we know? How do we know he’s out walkin’ the streets? Maybe he’s home bangin’ the baby-sitter. Not everybody who gets a parole is out walkin’ the streets. A lot of times they steal a car. We oughta be glad. “Thank God he stole a car. At least he’s not out walkin’ the streets.”

Fine and dandy. That’s an old-fashioned one, isn’t it? You say to a guy, “How are ya?” He says, “Fine and dandy.” Not me. I never say that. You know why? Because I’m never both those things at the same time. Sometimes I’m fine. But I’m not dandy. I might be close to dandy. I might be approaching dandy. I might even be in the general vicinity of dandyhood. But not quite fully dandy. Other times, I might indeed be highly dandy. However, not fine. One time, 1978. August. For about an hour. I was both fine and dandy at the same time. But nobody asked me how I was. I coulda told ’em, “Fine and dandy!” I consider it a lost opportunity.

Walking papers. Some guy gets fired, they say, “Well, they gave him his walkin’ papers today.” Lemme ask you something. Did you ever get any walking papers? Seriously? Believe me, in my life I got fired a lot of times. I never got any walkin’ papers. I never got a pink slip, either. You know what I would get? A guy would come around to my desk and say, “Get the fuck outta here!!” You don’t need paper for that.

The riot act. They keep saying they’re going to read that to you. Tell the truth, have you heard this thing at all? Ever?

It’s especially a problem when you’re a kid. They like to threaten you.

“You wait’ll your father comes home. He’s gonna read you the riot act!”

“Oh yeah? Well, tell him I already read it myself! And I didn’t like it! I consider it wordy and poorly thought out. If he wants to read me somethin’, how about The Gentleman’s Guide to the Golden Age of Tongue-Kissing?

More than happy. I’ll bet you say that sometimes. I’ll bet you say, “Oh, I’d be more than happy to do that.” How can you be more than happy? To me, this sounds like a dangerous mental condition. “We had to put Laszlo under physical restraint; he was…well, he was more than happy.”

One more of these expressions: In your own words. You hear it in classrooms. And courtrooms. They’ll say, “Tell us…in your own words…” Do you have your own words? Personally, I’m using the ones everybody else has been using. Next time they tell you to say something in your own words, say, “Nigflot blorny quando floon.”